Not on a Sunday....

FFFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYY,

Hi.

How are you?

I'm doing great.

 

I LOVE your letters. All 78.5 that I have to read. My companions were laughing at me because I was trying to laugh quietly at all of ya'lls letters. Your letters are gems.

 

So this week, we taught one of our investogators, Jennifer, about keeping the Sabbath day holy. My trainer, Sister Wright had done a really good visual expirament before, and so we dicided to use it. We asked Jennifer what her favorite condiments were, like mustard, ranch, salsa, those kinds of things. She told us the normal kinds of things. Then we pulled out some ice cream, scooped her a nice bowl, and then started to make her a sundae with all of those good things. Her face became a little worried as Sister Wright sqeezed out some ketsup, mustard, vinigar dressing, and other condiments onto her ice cream. We then handed her the bowl and smiled. She said "Well, those are good, but not on an ice cream sundae!" Exactly. We talked to her about how playing sports, going boating, going to the store or movies were all good things, but not on a Sunday. doing those things on Sunday are like putting mustard and ketchup on ice cream, they're good, but not on a sundae. We then talked about how and ice cream sundae wouldn't be and ice cream sundae with out the ice cream, it's like that with church. It wouldn't be a sunday without church. We then scooped her another bowl of ice cream, and put the appropriate toppins on it, chocolate and whipped cream and stuff and talked about how there are things that do go on Sundays, like reading out scriptures, writing in  journals, visitng family, and other good things. I thought that it was a good lesson to help Jennifer understand, and I wanted to share it with the family becuase I thought that maybe it was something you could use to help teach the kids. It's interesting how many things I learn to teach that would be so great to use with the kids.

 

I had my first Zone Conference this last week. FABULOUS. Really. It really pumped me up and made me want to do my best as a missionary. Being a missionary is something that I've wanted to do for my whole life, and this week especially, I've looked in the mirror somedays, and smiled. Just becuause a year ago, I would have never in my life guessed what I would be doing right now. I am a missionary. I love it.

 

We also made scrap book pages for President and Sister Jones, since they are being released in July and we will be getting a new mission president. We gathered our paper from the tables, sat down with our photos they had asked us to bring, and then Sister Wright turned to me and ask "will you make mine for me?" my companions think I am crafty or something. Please. I try to tell them about Shar and Danika's crafts, to help them understand how uncrafty I really can be.

 

We've been doing a lot more tracting lately, since a lot of our lessons are falling through since finals for Texas State are next week. We've met a lot of interesting people, and seen a lot of timing miracles.

 

On Friday, we met a girl sitting in a parking lot. She's had a rough life, dropping out of school at 13 and being kicked out of her house later. She's turn to a lot of things that are harmful to her body, and is starving a lot of the time. As we talked to her about God's love for her, she got pretty worked up and upset, asking us "where is my God? In a world like this, where is He? Why isn't He here?" We shared the Book of Mormon with her, and hope to find a way to get her to Church. She did feel peace towards the end before we left. She wasn't able to get to Church yesterday however. Friday night, as we came home, I was really shaken from the experience. Life Isn't a fairy tale. It is hard. It is dark. And it can hurt. But. We have a Savior. God knew of the things that we would fall into in this life, and the pain that we would have to experience, and in His infinite and eternal love, he provided a means for us to escape it. He provided us with a Savior. He provided an Atonement. I am so greatful for Christ in my life. His Atonement and Love are so real. Tangible. Everyday, in everyway.

 

I love you all so much, and think of your smiling faces often. Jed, I got your graduation annoucement. Your picture is awesome :) Congrats with everything, and good luck to Jed and Katie with graduation and the baby, and to Sharlan with not being homeless for long. Good luck with Ammons Project and Jubilees graduation, your both going to be great! Danika I love your face, and your letters, I pray for you everyday. Little kids: I love your pictures and letters. Keep them coming. Mom and dad, I enjoy your letters and hope you keep up with your sci-fi show. Sounds like dad is enjoying it haha :)

 

Take care ya'll!

 

Letters are always welcome :)

 

Hermana Enne Montgomery

A Representative of Jesus Christ

This has been the fastest week of my life. It's also been an awfully slow week as we only had one lesson with an investigator, and three walk in lessons. It's been difficult, but I've seen a lot of miracles as well.

At one point, I want to say Wednesday or Thursday night, we were knocking doors and it was my turn to lead the introductions and such. The door opened and we could see that there was a kind of birthday party going on, and immideatly I felt uncomfortable with everyone staring at me. The girl who answered yelled "mom it's for you!" passing off the annoying visiters to someone else,and walked away leaving us standing there. The mom came over and the words "hi, we're missionaries" were barely out of my mouth before she started laughing at us and shuting the door. "Don't want any of that here!" she said as the door closed sharply in my face.  First time I've really felt like crying since coming out to Texas. Sister Wright touched my arm and said kindly, "Christ had people spit in his face too." It was then that I realized, and if I was to represent who Christ was and is, I was going to have to take some of brunt of peoples words and actions. He was mocked and tortured, Spit upon, and scorged, and He was the kindest person to ever live. If I am to represent Him, I have to represent Him at all time and not just when it's easy.

We've started to get a little Spanish tutoring for a few minutes after church on Sundays from some of the native Spanish speakers,since we aren't using our Spanish a lot. We've been practicing and preparing all week to teach them just one principle from Preach My Gospel, and I was nervous. I worked on memorizing the first vision in Spanish, and so far it's been kicking my trash. While practicing Sunday morning with Sister Wright, she told me to simplify it. To use the words that I did know, and to not make it harder for myself by using descriptve or laungage I didn't know. She told me I could do that bare minimum of what I did know, and work up from there. And so I did. Mike, a member in my ward was helping me, and he's been speaking English since 1st grade. He told me that he still has trouble reading English sometimes and sometimes doesn't understand words in english. It gave me hope, since he's been learning English for over 10 years know and still struggles sometimes. It will come. I can at least use past tense forms of words now, so that's a plus.

Transfers are coming up fast already and my trio has decided that we need to start praying to stay together. We just have too much fun and work well together to be split. The laughs keep us going in the day as we knock on many empty apartment doors. The weather has been pretty up and down this week, one day we'll be sweating buckets, and the next we'll be putting on coats and tights. One day, I said "as long as I can wear carves and scardigons I'll be okay." That mishap of words is still going strong in our jokes.

I'm working hard to learn all that I can. I want to be prepared. We were told that we could be training the new wave of sisters as soon as we're done with our own training. I've already had nightmares about training. Sister Wright thinks sister Miller and I are all cute being so worried about training in eight weeks. She said she'd even recomend us for training once we were done. She got a good laugh out of our tarified faces. I hope she was joking.

Well. The work moves forward.

With mucho love,

Hermana Montgomery

Tails of Faith and Tender Mercies All Around Us

Hey Ya'll.

Hmm. That was fun. Let's do it again. Ya'll. Embrace it folks.

Did you all LOVE conference? I know I did. A lot. Did anyone else notice the new camera angles? I think there must be a new director of filmography or something, because it was a bit different from others.

It's been a rough week here. Oh wow. Lot's of Trials of Faith happening around us. But also a lot of tender mercies.

One of our investigators, Jennifer, is moving mountains. We taught her the Word of Wisdom this week, and she struggled with the idea. We ended up being there for a very long time, but before we had left she understood what she had to do and started getting rid of the things. She has some pretty intense addictions to these things, and being in a college town, partying and drinking is what everyone does. But as she threw things away, she became more excited, and then kept looking for more things to get ride of. She is still struggling and working through some heavy withdrawls from those strong drinks, among other things. I admire her willingness to change so much. The things people do to come closer to Christ are not easy. But as Elder Holland told us once "becoming aquanted with the Savior is not a cheap experience. It's suppose to require some of your soul." I love his words. It gives me strength to know that amide all mine and others trials,as we turn to Him, we are coming to know our Savior more

On Sunday, we knocked into a few people and shared an Easter message. One, James invited us to come back again on Tuesday. James is a Photography Major here at TSU and has been through a lot  the past couple of years. He's had five deaths in his family in the past three years, including his father's death from cancer. He has a lot of empty space inside, and I can feel angels all around us trying to help him as we teach him. He told as that his dad passed away around 21 days before his birthday two years ago. We knocked into him March 31 this year, 21 days before his birthday this year. I don't believe in luck. He still has a lot to heal from, a lot of pain, and we're praying so hard for him to find the turth in our message.

Right before the end of our last lesson with him, he said something about me being a "computer" becuase I just knew all the answers. This troubled me a little. I am not a computer. I am a person, doing my best to connect to people and help them understand. And I started overanalyzing my whole life, wondering if I act like a computer, just spitting out the facts and not caring about the people. I didn't feel like I was. And I started to feel like no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't going to be good enough. After the lesson we were home eating dinner, and my trainer, Sister Wright finnally got it out of me what was bothering me. She had to explain to me that in this sistuation, James was not unsulting me, instead giving me a very high complement. She told me that He could tell that there was something different when I spoke to him, and because he couldn't identify it as the power of God, he had to find a different way to describe it. Computer. I felt a little better. I just wished I could know for sure.

Within seconds we recived a text message from James thanking us for our lesson, and spacifically the short mormon message that we shared with him ("Mountains to Climb"). He said that it was pretty "spot on" to how he felt. I had decided to show the movie to him in our lesson, because nothing else seemed to be coming. At the time, I couldn't tell if President Eyring's powerful words in the movie had touch him at all. But they had. And I had felt prompted to share it with him. I realized that even in my selfish moments of doubting if I could really be a good missionary, God had sent me a tender mercy to show me that I could make a difference. That through following the promptings of the Spirit, I could help others find peace in their life.

I am so grateful for a Father in Heaven who knows not only my needs, but all His children's needs, and he will not withhold from us if we but ask.  Even with so many struggles this week, with our investigators not following through, and losing quite a few, God is still there. And this is His work.

Well. Family. Life is busy and rough here sometimes. But I am a missionary. I am a Missionary. I still can't believe I'm here. This really is His work. And it is marvelous.

Love,

Your Hermana Montgomery

A Whole Bunch of Firsts

FFFAAAMMMMIILLLLLYYYY!

(Must read in the tone Nacho would use)

 

How is everyone?! I've spent so much time enjoying everyone's emails that I now have to speed type. it could be a struggle. Pero, esta bein.

 

Well, It's been a busy week and I can hardly believe that it's only been a week. Sister Wright and Sister Miller both agree with me that it feels like we've been together for MONTHS. So much has happened since coming to San Marcos that I feel that I must have lived here my whole life. Sister MIller said "if it weren't for my lack of knowledge of how to get anywhere, I'd have said I've lived here my whole life." True Statement.

 

A lot of firsts happened to me this week. Let me share a few:

 

I met and taught my first "wickin" this week, I think that's how you'd spell wickin, not really sure. It was interesting, and she accepted a Book of Mormon and said that if she felt it was right, she would keep reading it. Interesting.

 

I spent my first Easter away from home. Weird. Yeah. Last year, school ended right before Easter and so I was able to come home. And so I spent the day knocking on doors. In the rain. Interesting.But it was so good. I met two people who let us in and we had excellant lessons on the Atonement and both scheduled a time for us to come back and teach them again.

 

I went to my first lds non-temple wedding. The sisters before me had been teaching a couple, and they just got married. The girl, Sarah was disowned by her family for deciding to get married and baptized, and so it was really good that our trio was there to support her, since no one in her family was there. I really admire these people who set aside everything in their lives to follow what they know is right. Kevin and Sarah are already planning their Temple wedding ina year, and it's so exciting to see them learn and grow.

 

I also gave my first talk as a missionary. Yes, since there are only about 30-45 people in our small YSA branch, when someone new comes into the ward, they snatch them up fast. They asked me to speak on the Atonement, and for some reason, maybe because I was a missionary speaking and needed to be wise, or becuase I still hardly know anyone in the ward, or maybe it was that the Atonement is so important and I wanted to deliever it in the best way possible, any of those reasons could be it, but I was really nervous and stressing out over this talk. But it took place, and went pretty well. And now I can breath a little.But really, as a missionary, everyone expects you to know the answer. There is a very high standard for Sister Missionaries, and boy, when they call on me in class to answer the question, my hands start sweating. That's never happened to me before. Sweaty hands. It's weird. A whole new level of nerves I guess.

 

Our Branch President taught the combined lesson in our Branch yesterday, and we talked about a Book of Mormon Challange at one point. He told a story about a missionary who had the goal to read the Book of Mormon every month while on his mission. And he did. He read it 24 times on his mission. That really impressed me. Our Branch president and his wife decided to try to read the whole Book of Mormon in March, and they did. He said that he wanted to know if he could do it himself before asking his branch to take on the challange. And so he challenged us to read it. And then do it again. There is great power to be had in studying the Book of Mormon a little, or a lot, everyday.

 

The work is so great here. Everyday I am amazed at the people and their faith and strength. God's hand is in our lives everyday.

 

I love you all, and hope that you are doing TOO FANTASTIC.

Hug Shar for me.

 

Love,

The Hermana Montgomery

A Little Bit of Texas Pride and Shunshine

FFFAAAMMILLLYYYYY.

 

HI!

 

There are just too many things exploding in my mind to write them all, but I will do my very best to let you all know how my first week in the land of the sun has been.

 

First. We flew out Wednesday morning.  When we got to the mission four of the Hermana's were assigned to stay at a senior couples house in San Antonio the first night.  Before we went to bed we had a little adventure in the bathroom. I had noticed the toilet might not flush right in the guest bathroom and so I warned my companion not to use it, or at least proceed with caution. So she decided to check it out. The next thing I know she comes running out whispering/yelling "it's flooding! IT'S FLOODING!" and sure enough, the bathroom floor had become a 2 inch lake. It took a while to clean it all up, and I'm sure the senior couple had no idea what they were getting into when they said we could stay there. We didn't either.

 

We also got to go the the Almo on our first night, I'll have to tell you more about it in a hand written letter. It was cool. Texas pride is real. And big.  And I will deffinetly be coming back with a bit. And the sun is GLORIOUS. It is still a little chilly though, weird, and so I get to wear my cardigns for just a little longer. WAHOO.

 

The next morning we had the transfer conference, and I ended up having to go to austin to actually meet my new companion. There had been rumors of one sister training two sisters, and having a lot of trios in our mission, and I was just lucky enough to be a part of that. So i have TWO companions, Sister Wright is traning both Sister Miller and I. We are serving in San Marcos, which is just a little ways outside of Austin, and we are actually in the YSA ward there. It's a bit interesting being around people my age and having them call me Sister Montgomery. It's also a English speaking part of the mission, so I'm not getting to use my Spanish and whole lot while teaching. But as a companionship we are trying to speak Spanish to each other as much as possible. So let me tell you a bit about my Companions.

 

Sister Wright: She is the same person as Sharlan. Really. With a little bit of Kaylee Brooks. The same kind of mannerisms and voice fluctuations, and hand motions and her sense or humor as Shar. Sometime I have to look up and rememeber that it's Sister Wright I'm talking to and not Shar, becuase, I'm not kidding, I sometimes think Shar is training me. I guess that's Gods way of making it up to me that I missed Shar's homecoming by a few months. Sister Wright is awesome and energetic and she is so good at teaching us and the investogators.

 

Sister Miller: She has a huge smile. It's what she is known for. She is so loving at caring, and just connects to everyone. She is also from Washington, up in Bellingham, and what do you know, also went to BYUI. Everyone asks us if we knew each other before we came. And then we have to explain that we are actually rather far part in Washington.

 

We each bring different aspects to the teaching, and I'm rather glad that I'm teaching the first couple weeks in English. But I do miss Spanish sometimes, and being called "Hermana Montgomery" instead of just Sister Montgomery.

 

OH. I haven't even told you about our investogators. Real quick.

 

We have three progressing investogators that came to church yesterday. They are so prepared. EVERYONE is. It's crazy how often we knock on doors and the people are like "It's interesting that you would show up today, I was just praying this morning..." On our first night, the second person that we knocked into, we shared the whole first lesson with and invited her to church and everything, and she was really excited about it. Sister Wright has to keep telling us that it's usually not like this, becuase so many people are just so ready for the message that we have to share.

 

Time is running out. Always. There is so much to do always, and so little time to do it in. I'm am so thankful for this opportunity to be serving in the Texas San Antonio Mission. I wish I could write you guys everything that I've experienced in just these few short days I've been here.

 

Life is good. Life is Great. The Gospel is true.

 

I know it. I live it. I LOVE it.

 

HERMANA Montgomery

As The Army of Heleman

Dear Family,

 

And thus begins my last week here at the MTC. Wow. They weren't kidding when they said that on our missions we would have the longest days and the shortest weeks, the longest weeks and the shortest months, and the longest months and the shortest years. We head out on Wednesday at 6am for the airport. There are about 30-35 of us in our traveling group, with 5 of us from our district. We met a sister who is actually from San Antonio and she said that everyone is talking about us coming in becuase there are so many sisters coming into that mission. It's an exciting time to be a missionary.

 

With leaving the MTC comes saying goodbye to our friends and investigators. We taught Consuela for the last time. Best lesson we've ever had. I don't remember if I mentioned it in my last email, but after our last lesson with her,with the ripped picture object lesson, she committed to baptism. Finally. I was so excited for her. And over the week before we taught her again for the last time, she changed. She was reading the Book of Mormon and had lots of questions and had a desire to know and understand the whole picture. We had decided to talk about the Book of Mormon more in our lesson anyway, and as she started asking questions, it was confermed that that was what she needed to hear. We shared our testimonies of the Book of Mormon, and shared Moroni 10:1-10 with her. After we asked her to pray right there to know if the Book of Mormon was true. She did. It was one of the most powerful prayers I have ever felt. After she asked to know, she waited. Totally still and quite for about a minute and a half. I even peaked at one point to see if I had missed the end of the prayer, becuase that's happened before to me when they're in Spanish. But no. She was waiting for her answer. The Spirit flooded the room overwhalmingly. We could tell she felt it. We could tell that she had recived her answer. She changed again after that. We could feel her peace all around her, and could feel the happiness that she felt. But then came the sad part. I don't know if most missionaries do it in the MTC, but I had to say goodbye to Consuela. We had to tell her that we wetre being transfered next week, but that new missionaries would come and continue to teach her everything she needed to know about the gospel. It was hard. I wanted to be there for her so much. This person, who was really my teacher, had become such a part of my existance that it was hard to hug her and say goodbye. We've been told to keep tabs on the people we teach for the rest of our lives. I'm starting to understand why now. Teaching and sharing the gospel builds bonds. I challenge everyone to build those bonds with everyone around them.

 

We were asked to sing in our sacrament meeting this last Sunday, and we had originally wanted to sing our of our favorite Spanish Hymns, but then we were requested to sing the EFY medley. We went to the music library to find it and found it in Spanish as well, and so we decided to suprise everyone bby singing it in Spanish. We practice and finally decided that the Hermanas would sing their part in Spanish, the Elders their part in Spanish and  then we would invite the rest of our branch to sing with medley part with us in English. We've been practicing all week and Sunday came and we were up first. We started singing, and at first I could look out and see that not all the elders were paying attention, they were goofing off or whatever. And then we came to the Elders part in Spanish and they all sat up and watched them carefully. And then one Hermana in our district stepped forward and raised her hands to have them stand up. Everyone got excited. We all stood together and sang "We are as the Army of Helamen, we have been taught in our youth. And we will be the Lord's missionaries to bring the world His truth." The Spirit and energy in the room was immeasurable. Everyone was shaking and could feel the power and reality of our words. Many had tears. At this point, I took the Hermanas hands on either side of me, and in a row, all six hermanas joined hands, holding each other up. Afterwards, talkis were given, with President Jackman last. He asked that instead of us singing God be with you 'til we meet again for our closing hymn, if we could sing the medley again. And so we stood again and sang again. The elders have been told that whenever they stand up in a meeting, the are to button the jackets so that they look nicer. I noticed that when the rest of our branch stood to sing again with us, all of the elders coats were buttoned, and they stood tall. They weren't little boys goofing off in the back anymore. They had heard the words, and now they were answering the call.

 

I love and pray for you all.

Hermana Montgomery

There is more

Well Family. Travel plans have come. Oh wow. I have exactly 1.5 weeks until I get on a plane and jet out to TEXAS.

So much as happened this week, like every week, but it's been a good week.  It started basically on Sunday night, We watched a old devotional from Elder Bednar talking about the character of Christ. So basically my favorite things. I was talking notes in such a panic so as not to miss anything important that the rest of my district was laughing at the mad scribbles flying from my hand. It was good stuff. Basically, he defined Christ's character by how he always turned out and focused on others instead of himself.

This week, we taught Amalio and Consuela twice each. During our second lesson with Amalio, he was trying to explain to us that he just didn't have time for the gospel. That he couldn't be a fanatic about God like we were. That he had a life working 12 hours a day to provide for his family and parents, and he didn't have time to study the Book of Mormon as much as we could. Before we had went into the lesson, we had prayed to be be able to know what to say in the moment. Now, as Amalio was talking to us, I felt prompted to share the quote in our kitchen by Ezra Taft Benson that says "when we put God first, everything else falls into place, or falls out of our lives" and I sat up right there said no to that thought. "I can't say that in SPANISH! It's too hard. I can't do that." Through out the lesson, other scriptures, quotes and thoughts came to my mind, but I turned them down because I didn't know how to say them in Spanish. After our lesson we had class, and our teacher talked to all of us about how Amalio was progressing. Our teacher, Hermano Hopoate, is Amalio, but he is basing his character off of a real investigator that he taught on his mission. Hermano Hopoate told us basically that for Amalio, we needed to show him the relevance of the gospel to his life. He told us more about Amalio, and what his character was, and the more he taught us about Amalio, the more guilty I felt. I had prayed and asked, been impressed upon to teach Amalio, exactly what we were being told he needed, and I had said no. Said no straight up. It was really humbling to me. I realized, again, that if we want God to help us, we have to have intentions of meeting Him half way. If we ask for help, we need to get up and follow Him when He is telling us what to do. I hope that I can do better following His instructions and promptings in the future.

Consuela. She hasn't been progressing. Mostly she doesn't understand how she needs God in her life. Why does it matter if he has a plan of happiness, if she is already happy with everything that she has? And so after much studying, scribbling on the board, praying and discussing, my companion and I came up with a lesson plan. We wanted to talk about faith, and having just a small desire to have faith. And we also wanted to talk about how having faith helps us to see the bigger picture in life. And so we had a little object lesson. We found a picture of a flower, in one of my ensigns, that I knew would come in handy, and we cut it out. During the lesson, we showed her the picture and asked her if she thought it was beautiful. She said yes. And then my companion ripped the picture into little pieces. As she ripped I watched Consuela's face. She was absolutely astonished, flabbergasted  taken a back, in short, shocked that we would show her a beautiful picture and then rip it. My companion handed her one small piece of the picture, and said "oh these aren't important" about the other pieces and put them underneath her scriptures. We again asked Consuela if she thought the picture we had given her was beautiful. She said "yes...but I want the whole picture." YES. Our lives may be great, they may be perfect, but without the gospel and knowledge of God's plan for us, we have only a small piece of the grand picture. The picture is beautiful. Why would we want to be content with just one small, ripped piece of the picture? Conseula is starting to understand why it matters. There is more. There is more than this life. There is more that just school , status and money. There is more than just us. There is a plan. God's plan. And it is beautiful.

Part of that plan for us, is gaining experience. And boy did I have an experience this week. We were role playing, and teaching in English. Weird. The topic we were practicing was Christ's Atonement and time on Earth. I thought to myself "I got this. I know how to do this in English." And so I taught. And talked a lot. And when we came to the feed back part, I got pretty good feedback. BUT. I didn't have the Spirit. I said what I wanted to say, and what I thought, not what I was prompted to say. I think I realized that day one of the reasons why I'm learning Spanish. When I speak Spanish, I depend fully on the Spirit for what to say. When I speak in English, I rely on myself. It was really humbling to me.

I realized that I didn't really say anything about the pictures that I sent last week, and so I will say something about my pictures this week.

(See Left) You should all know and appreciate the fact that I haven't given up my drawing skills. This is my latest project of stick figures. My district. They are TOO FANTASTIC. This is my rendition of us. And Elder Jensen, our district leader, says that oddly enough, they all look like us. I was told I was an artist. You know it. Nobody can one up my stick figures.

Well, that's about all. I'm glad that I had time to finish telling you about my week. Keep writing. I love you all. 

Hermana C. Montgomery